Granting that ousted Speaker Joe de Venecia is a sour grape in baring it. Still Gloria Arroyo must explain her presence at the head office of a firm that was lobbying for a big government deal. Despite the quashing by a bribed House committee of her impeachment rap, the act remains criminal. Next week’s expected trashing by a similarly paid plenary will not absolve her either. It will only amount to another crime: obstructing justice by cover-up.
The alibi is lame that Arroyo visited ZTE Corp. in Shenzhen in Nov. 2006 to invite the Chinese telecom maker to invest in RP. It is so infirm that she and her kin are too ashamed to say it themselves, and so had a House gofer do so. The $329-million broadband contract that her subs eventually awarded was not an investment, but a loan to be repaid by Filipinos with interest. She golfed and feasted on rare Shanghai crabs courtesy of ZTE, an inordinate acceptance of gifts banned by the Anti-Graft Act. The law deems as corrupt “receiving any gift in connection with any contract.” Too, “giving any private party any unwarranted benefits, advantage or preference.” Let alone, “entering into a contract grossly and manifestly disadvantageous to the government.”
De Venecia presented as evidence their photo with a ZTE exec. Just by being there, Arroyo also broke the Code of Conduct for Public Officials. The law directs officials to “endeavor to discourage wrong perceptions of their roles as dispensers or peddlers of undue patronage.” And what was she doing with then-Comelec chief Ben Abalos, whom she was bound by her constitutional oath to keep neutral?
In expected steamroll, the committee voted 42-8 that the photo is not proof of graft. The big cash reportedly paid to each majority rep must have blinded them from work. What they had to do was determine probability of graft, culpable violation of the Constitution, and betrayal of public trust. Guilt is for the Senate to establish. Only in a trial would have come Dante Madriaga’s evidence that $41 million was paid in three bribery stages. And, that the total bribes jibe with a 15-percent down payment — $49.5 million — that RP was obliged to pay within 10 days of contract signing.
Also junked allegedly for having no substance was Sec. Peter Favila’s illegal award to ZTE of mining rights in Mount Diwalwal. The Charter bans foreigners from exploiting natural resources. Majority lawyers claimed that Arroyo should not be sued for blunders of her subs. Yet clearly annexed as evidence, aside from Favila’s contract, was Arroyo’s special authority for him to sign. “What more proof does the majority need of her culpability?” minority Rep. Rufus Rodriguez had to press the obvious.
Trashed too was the bribery of 189 congressmen in Oct. 2007 to take up only the sham Arroyo impeachment filed by Roel Pulido. The majority pretended anew to see no proof. Yet, Reps. Tony Cuenco and Benny Abante admitted to being handed P500,000 each at a breakfast called by Arroyo in Malacañang. De Venecia and Crispin Beltran had told of being given or offered up to P2 million by Palace operatives. And Rep. Girlie Villarosa had owned up to being the giver to at least two more colleagues.
The majority saw no probable cause in Jocjoc Bolante’s 2004 diversion of P728 million in fertilizer aid to Arroyo’s presidential campaign. Skirting the former agriculture undersecretary’s extracted confession to senators of anomalies, they said Bolante alone should fry. Yet they know that Cabinet men have no authority to release more than P3 million without presidential assent. Why, they even know from personal experience that Arroyo herself oversees the release of their pork barrel tranches. So what more P5 million each to 124 congressmen to campaign for her in 2004?
They saw no crime in the P3-billion swine scam. Yet the narration of facts showed that Malacañang’s remittances to handpicked but unqualified suppliers followed closely Bolante’s modus. The ghost delivery of piglets to farmers was done with obvious presidential nod also during the 2004 run.
The majority avoided the Northrail issue. Yet de Venecia pointed to a huge fault. Three years after Malacañang signed the $501-million loan from China, not an inch of railway has been laid down. Yet Filipinos already are repaying it. Arroyo’s lackeys ignored her hand in a project she ordered VP Noli de Castro to handle along with two other agencies.
Ignored too was the Hello Garci tape, supposedly for being old hat. But the issue is not so much about vote rigging than Arroyo’s approval of the kidnapping of a female election officer in Sulu.
Ignored lastly were the killing, abduction and torture of constituents of the majority. Everybody is already for sale, de Venecia had noted. Those among 2007’s 189 bribed congressmen did not inhibit themselves despite obvious conflict of interest. Same with those among the 124 recipients of Bolante’s booty. Same with committee head Matias Defensor, whose son Mike as presidential chief of staff is implicated in the ZTE-Diwalwal folly. The lure of early Christmas cash gifts must have been too strong for them all to forget about the lives and liberties of their voters. Justice for the murdered, the disappeared and the tormented now rests on karma.
* * *
E-mail: jariusbondoc@workmail.com